Among the fun things that occurs at the United States Sports Academy is the monthly convening of the Academy Awards of Sport Selection Committee to select candidates for the monthly Athlete of the Month ballot.
This committee, comprised primarily of Academy faculty, meets to review, debate (sometimes heatedly) and otherwise consider athlete sport performances from virtually every sport imaginable and every corner of the globe. In many ways the process is a reaffirmation for the faculty of the Academy as an educational institution dedicated to the profession of sports!
Once the monthly ballot of six males and six females has been selected, it is distributed through an email distribution list numbering more than 15,000 individuals so they can weigh-in for the final selection. The winners on the monthly ballot go on to be considered for inclusion in the annual Athlete of the Year Ballot posted in January and one that has garnered tens of thousands of votes from around the world.
For the first time since the Academy launched its Athlete of the Year program in 1995, the institution has been unable to assemble a monthly ballot for April. It is a testimony to the destructive influence that the COVID-19 virus has had upon the worldwide sport community as virtually every sporting event at every level around the world has been cancelled or postponed.
There are hopeful signs that change is coming as athletes are once again beginning to practice and sport competitions resume, being led by NASCAR on 17 May. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of things to come and the sign of life slowly returning to normal.
In closing, we do want to thank all of you who have participated in the voting over the years and we look forward to putting up our monthly ballots again soon.
Stay safe everyone!
Click here to tell us who you want to be the next Athlete of the Month!
